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On February 04 2023 17:10 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2023 06:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 03 2023 22:34 Acrofales wrote:On February 03 2023 22:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 03 2023 20:55 Slydie wrote:On February 03 2023 20:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 03 2023 19:54 Slydie wrote:On February 03 2023 19:39 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 03 2023 18:44 RvB wrote:On February 03 2023 11:33 GreenHorizons wrote:
I was going to leave it alone (and still largely am) but the revolution discussion made me wonder what people's actual objections are to socialist revolution in the US?
1. There's opposition to socialism itself.
2. There's the notion that the status quo is imperfectly optimal and just needs modifications within it's own parameters (this would include reformism with socialism/communism as it's ultimate goal/ideal).
3. There's fear of people losing their comfort, social status, livelihoods, lives, etc.
4. There's the uncertainty that a revolution would be successful in overcoming the existing system that comes with fears of the consequences of a failed revolution (like the sacrifices being made in vain/retaliation for insolence).
5. There's fear of a successful revolution that removes the existing power structure only to replace it with something similar/worse.
I feel like those are the major/umbrella points of opposition I've encountered, but I'm curious if I'm missing any (they could easily be slipping my mind in the moment).
Are people familiar with objections to a socialist revolution in the US that don't fit one of those? One that I think you are missing is that in countries where there are relatively free and fair elections a revolution is not democratic. If your ideas are popular enough you can just win at the ballot box. Requiring a revolution to implement your new society is admitting that your policies are not popular enough. Does that not pretty squarely fall under 2? No, it falls under your 1. The objection itself ("revolution is not democratic") seems to me to fall under 2. Basically that US democracy is adequate to implement socialist ideas/policy worth having within US democracy's own parameters. Socialist ideas losing at the ballot box is certainly a reference to 1, but the objection itself is 2 as I read it. On February 03 2023 20:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
3 and 5 cover it somewhat but with a focus on lives and livelihoods, not comfort and status. Some people losing status / a change in what grants status would be a net positive . Are you comfortable saying I didn't miss any objections you're readily aware of? If your revolutionary ideas don't win elections, then it does not have enough support=1. I don't think is fair to assume that a lot of people "really" support your agenda but don't dare to for whatever reason. I don't see the assumption you're describing. Just so it's clear what I'm saying: Even if we assume that everyone that votes against socialist policy conscientiously falls under 1. What I'm saying is that people whose objection to socialist revolution in the US is based on it circumventing US democracy and "that is not democratic" (which was the objection as I understood it) fall under 2. 1 and 2 aren't mutually exclusive objections/groups/beliefs fwiw though. Regardless, we can agree the objections are covered under my list. Are there objections that you are readily aware of that aren't covered under my list? Maybe one from first principles? Doubt it's a very often-used one, but you could argue from first principles that any revolution is immoral. For instance, because a revolution requires the use of violence and the use of violence is immoral, even to stop greater violence on behalf of someone else. There may be other religious or ethical grounds on which people might oppose any revolution. But I think you cover almost all objections in your points 1-5. Ahhh, like Quakers or something? I think we could fit them under 2 since principled nonviolence at least ostensibly operates within the parameters of US democracy and capitalism. Sound reasonable? Principled non-violence doesn't just exist within the parameters of democracy or capitalism. It existed under both Prussian and Russian monarchies and then for a little while during the Soviet Revolution. That's a fairly wide range of freedoms from Catherine the Great to modern US democracy, so I think it says very little about their views on to what degree US society needs modifying. The society only needs to be sufficiently tolerable/ communities left to their own devices for such communities to exist. The solution for such communities if things become too oppressive is to flee the country, cave to the ideology of the day as a survival mechanism, or get rounded up into the gulags. And as they are not currently fleeing the US... In other words, there's no amount of non-optimalness in the status quo combined with a despair of any true modifications that should move a principled non-violent community into revolution. Such conditions generally leads to flight, not fight.
Seems like you put thought and effort into that post, so I don't mean this dismissively, but I don't think I know what you're talking about.
My best interpretation is that you think "principled nonviolence" should have it's own number? I'm not especially opposed to it, but principled nonviolence doesn't negate the potential to support socialist revolution in and of itself. They oppose violence, so if they oppose a socialist revolution because they oppose it relying on any violence, they really fall into 3.
Like people with just a generic aversion to violence, they are opposing based on the fear that the revolution will have to use violence and do harm to people. Just to reiterate something, 1-5 are not mutually exclusive divisions. Nonviolence adherents that oppose socialist revolution could/would have their objections likely fall under any or all 5, but none of them are outside of the already listed 5 as far as I can tell.
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In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
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In my opinion any talk to about revolutionary diversion from the status quo need to recon with the fact that the status quo is - by all metrics - pretty effing amazing. Especially so-called progressives (who presumably are into progress) at least ought to recognize that we live in the best time period in all of history as measured by human flourishing. Not since Homo Sapiens first diverged from primates has life been so effing good.
War and violence is at it's lowest point ever, starvation is down, literacy is up etc etc etc.
Humanity blew past the UN 2000-2015 Millennium development goals.
120 years ago British imperialists enforced such starvation in India that human flesh was sold in markets.
80 years ago German imperialists systematically rounded up millions of European Jews in order to murder them.
60 years ago Chinese revolutionaries murdered millions of people for wearing effing glasses.
On the scale of last century the wars and violence of today barely registers.
And for those of you who dont care about poor people - it's not like progress only happens elsewhere either. If the COVID19 pandemic had struck 20 years ago there would have been no mRNA vaccines. Number of hours spent on house work (which people systematically refer to as their least favourite activity) has plummeted across the west. Leisure time is up. After thousands of years of violently enforced misogyny it's seen as natural for women to make money.
If you had to chose to be born again and the only decision available to you was a date between 10.000 years ago and today, but you didnt know where, you didn't know your skin colour, your parents socioeconomic status, or your sex, the logical choice would be to be born today. Today is the best effing day in the history of humanity.
And things keep getting better!! All the trend lines point towards progress continuing.
The fact that we can identify problems is is not a sign of things being irretrievably broken, rather the kinds of problems we are identifying is a sign of how great things are. It's not 'Oh no we have wide scale starvation, violence, or child mortality' rather it's '50 years from now many people will have to move away from where they are currently living due to to a changing climate. Oh and here is a number of things we can work on right now in order to make this situation in the future better'.
The universe doesnt owe us any of this. There were 1000s of years of combined history when the living situation for average Joe barely improved at all, in both hierarchical and non-hierarchical societies. Anyone advocating for a radical change in how society is organized should imo have a very very well thought through explanation of how their new society will let us keep having the progress of the past 300 years, while also resolving problems greater than the ones we have solved over the past 20 years. Otherwise I personally would much much rather keep rate of progress we have right now and nibble at the edges. Maybe higher wealth taxes, maybe publicly supported housing projects etc.. As I see it the opportunity loss if your radical future doesn't work out is ginormous.
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On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
I know next to nothing about what an appropriate response is, but what I read was that it (1) isn't able to see anything that can't be seen just as easily from a satellite and (2) shooting it down may cause debris that is dangerous to civilians.
So why would you want to shoot it out of the sky? Just because it's there?
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United States24633 Posts
On February 05 2023 01:05 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
I know next to nothing about what an appropriate response is, but what I read was that it (1) isn't able to see anything that can't be seen just as easily from a satellite and (2) shooting it down may cause debris that is dangerous to civilians. So why would you want to shoot it out of the sky? Just because it's there?
If they shot it out of the sky, I think gobbledydook would now be arguing that the Biden administration's response was to inappropriately shoot down a Chinese spy balloon despite the lack of need and the danger.
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ought to recognize that we live in the best time period in all of history as measured by human flourishing. Not since Homo Sapiens first diverged from primates has life been so effing good.
Im always tired of this argument, things are better in many respects (not all) right now yeah, its nice to have things like modern medicine, but I don't accept that as a reason to stop trying to do better.
There are tons of ways the world needs to dramatically improve, climate change, severe wealth inequality, human rights abuse, etc. etc.
If you had to chose to be born again
Aight, but you can't choose to be born again. We've been born now and we should make a serious effort to do better by those who are suffering and/or in need.
The universe doesnt owe us any of this.
Who gives a shit what the universe owes or thinks, as decent feeling human beings we owe it to each other to help where and when we can. We owe it to ourselves to do better.
Otherwise I personally would much much rather keep rate of progress we have right now and nibble at the edges.
Good luck with your nibbling-at-the-edges of things like climate change. Current rate of progress on that is nibbling-at-the-edges and its absolutely not going to be enough.
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United States42265 Posts
On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
Do you think it’s possible that the military response might be calculated by the military who know more than you do? And that weighing in as a layman might make you look like a fool who massively overestimates the value of his own opinion? Just asking questions.
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There's the added element of if the government can capture it or not. If the Chinese rigged it with explosives to prevent that then it would be an attack on the nation. If they didn't it's a free gift.
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On February 05 2023 01:32 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
Do you think it’s possible that the military response might be calculated by the military who know more than you do? And that weighing in as a layman might make you look like a fool who massively overestimates the value of his own opinion? Just asking questions.
I have a question also, are you and have you always been so deferential to the expertise of the American military (famed around the world for not making colossal mistakes) like for example Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, who when pressed about the location of the balloon and whether the American people had a right to know where it is, stated that "the public certainly has the ability to look up at the sky and see where the balloon is."
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On February 05 2023 01:45 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2023 01:32 KwarK wrote:On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
Do you think it’s possible that the military response might be calculated by the military who know more than you do? And that weighing in as a layman might make you look like a fool who massively overestimates the value of his own opinion? Just asking questions. I have a question also, are you and have you always been so deferential to the expertise of the American military (famed around the world for not making colossal mistakes) like for example Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, who when pressed about the location of the balloon and whether the American people had a right to know where it is, stated that "the public certainly has the ability to look up at the sky and see where the balloon is." Its not the militaries job to tell the public where every object in the sky is at all times.
Nor is there any reason for the public to know or worry about where it is, at all. Its essentially a weather balloon, regardless of if it has some extra spy equipment or not, any number of them are flying across America right now that no one gives a crap about.
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On February 05 2023 01:28 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +ought to recognize that we live in the best time period in all of history as measured by human flourishing. Not since Homo Sapiens first diverged from primates has life been so effing good. Im always tired of this argument, things are better in many respects (not all) right now yeah, its nice to have things like modern medicine, but I don't accept that as a reason to stop trying to do better. There are tons of ways the world needs to dramatically improve, climate change, severe wealth inequality, human rights abuse, etc. etc. Aight, but you can't choose to be born again. We've been born now and we should make a serious effort to do better by those who are suffering and/or in need. Who gives a shit what the universe owes or thinks, as decent feeling human beings we owe it to each other to help where and when we can. We owe it to ourselves to do better. Show nested quote +Otherwise I personally would much much rather keep rate of progress we have right now and nibble at the edges. Good luck with your nibbling-at-the-edges of things like climate change. Current rate of progress on that is nibbling-at-the-edges and its absolutely not going to be enough.
If faced by a list of the ways in which we are currently making progress you say 'Well i don't care about any of that.', then maybe you are not as progressive as you think you are?
Of course we should identify problems, of course we should work to improve things. And WE ARE. Again we blew past the 2000 UN development goals. The new 2015 version includes a line item for 'eliminate all hunger everywhere'. We have reached the point of human development when 'eliminating all hunger everywhere' is an achievable goal. I dont know what kind of progressivism you ascribe to, but if you refuse to even recognize this as amazing progress I want none of it.
My point about the universe is not that I want people to 'give a shit' my point is simply that the default state of humanity is a subsistence existence full of hunger violence and death. Millions of people worked hard, and made certain choices in order to bring us where we are now. The current situation is so effing unlikely that I would argue that any change, any choice, is more likely to decrease human flourishing than to improve it. By making small changes we get the opportunity to discard the bad changes before they hurt people and cycle through the options until we find good ones. Revolutions are big changes by definition. They are more likely to hurt than to help. If things were shit I could agree that that's worth it, but things are not shit. Things are amazing.
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United States42265 Posts
On February 05 2023 01:45 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2023 01:32 KwarK wrote:On February 04 2023 19:46 gobbledydook wrote:
In other news, a Chinese spy balloon has been found flying over the U.S.
The Biden administration's response is to watch it fly past military installations, instead of destroying it like you would an invading object from an enemy nation.
Do you think it’s possible that the military response might be calculated by the military who know more than you do? And that weighing in as a layman might make you look like a fool who massively overestimates the value of his own opinion? Just asking questions. I have a question also, are you and have you always been so deferential to the expertise of the American military (famed around the world for not making colossal mistakes) like for example Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, who when pressed about the location of the balloon and whether the American people had a right to know where it is, stated that "the public certainly has the ability to look up at the sky and see where the balloon is."
They may not always be right but I’m unlikely to be sufficiently informed on why they’re right or wrong. I wasn’t given the report on the capabilities of the balloon, the report on the capabilities of their satellites, and what options we had. I wasn’t in that meeting. They’re fallible, but so am I and I’m substantially less informed on the matter than them. It would be weird for me to weigh in on this.
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If faced by a list of the ways in which we are currently making progress you say 'Well i don't care about any of that.', then maybe you are not as progressive as you think you are?
Lol what? Going "We need to make more progress and faster," makes me... not as progressive... ?
We have reached the point of human development when 'eliminating all hunger everywhere' is an achievable goal.
We could do it now if we made the effort. We aren't making the effort. We could do so much if we made the effort, instead we let profit motive dictate our effort and guess what, humanitarian pursuits aren't all that great a profit motive.
default state of humanity is a subsistence existence full of hunger violence and death
I think this is a depressingly limited view of humanity even by caveman standards. Prehistoric humans also had community and love and fun and practiced art, etc.
By making small changes we get the opportunity to discard the bad changes before they hurt people and cycle through the options until we find good ones.
Small changes also have the opportunity (as we're seeing) to be too little to resolve problems and potentially allow more major issues to crop up. Small change also typically occurs long term which, to those suffering, means prolonging their suffering. What happens when we've let small change go for too long and now small change isn't enough?
Things are amazing.
For you maybe. Plenty of people out there burdened with outrageous medical debt, people who can't afford their medications and die, people who can't afford rising costs of rent and necessities, people who are starving, people who are homeless, people killed by the police, for them things probably aren't looking so amazing. But hey, happy for you.
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If the balloon is just a pointless provocation there may be wisdom in just ignoring it, thr thing that causes me concern and shows this isn't just a military matter is the political response. The administration didn't say anything until local media saw it and apparently Blinken thought it was serious enough to postpone his trip. Maybe that's a pretense, but we don't know. Either way though it implies this isn't just a matter of military judgment, but also political judgement. Therefore, what should be done about it is left in the hands of elected politicians and their appointees, which in turn brings us back to citizens and voters, even indirectly. Combine that with the fact that, whatever the CCP says, it probably wasn't an accident, and it's perfectly reasonable to have a a contrary view from that of the military brass or presidential administration.
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United States42265 Posts
On February 05 2023 02:33 Introvert wrote:
If the balloon is just a pointless provocation there may be wisdom in just ignoring it, thr thing that causes me concern and shows this isn't just a military matter is the political response. The administration didn't say anything until local media saw it and apparently Blinken thought it was serious enough to postpone his trip. Maybe that's a pretense, but we don't know. Either way though it implies this isn't just a matter of military judgment, but also political judgement. Therefore, what should be done about it is left in the hands of elected politicians and their appointees, which in turn brings us back to citizens and voters, even indirectly. Combine that with the fact that, whatever the CCP says, it probably wasn't an accident, and it's perfectly reasonable to have a a contrary view from that of the military brass or presidential administration.
You can reasonably have a contrary view but you should also have a reasonable level of self awareness about the extent of your own expertise. What is your level of expertise regarding Chinese spy satellite technology?
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On February 05 2023 02:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2023 02:33 Introvert wrote:
If the balloon is just a pointless provocation there may be wisdom in just ignoring it, thr thing that causes me concern and shows this isn't just a military matter is the political response. The administration didn't say anything until local media saw it and apparently Blinken thought it was serious enough to postpone his trip. Maybe that's a pretense, but we don't know. Either way though it implies this isn't just a matter of military judgment, but also political judgement. Therefore, what should be done about it is left in the hands of elected politicians and their appointees, which in turn brings us back to citizens and voters, even indirectly. Combine that with the fact that, whatever the CCP says, it probably wasn't an accident, and it's perfectly reasonable to have a a contrary view from that of the military brass or presidential administration. You can reasonably have a contrary view but you should also have a reasonable level of self awareness about the extent of your own expertise. What is your level of expertise regarding Chinese spy satellite technology?
I strongly suspect it's better than whatever a balloon has. The first few days of this story I thought just letting it go was fine, as I couldn't game out a way in my head that trying (and maybe failing) to shoot it down was worth it. I'm just not sure we are getting the whole story and I don't know what implications this has for future CCP activity in our area. It's just curious to me that a big diplomatic trip was worth canceling for this, but the balloon itself is not worth dealing with. It's precisely our ignorance that creates more room for contrasting opinions. We need more info from the administration and I'm not at all opposed to congress demanding it.
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On February 05 2023 02:43 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2023 02:36 KwarK wrote:On February 05 2023 02:33 Introvert wrote:
If the balloon is just a pointless provocation there may be wisdom in just ignoring it, thr thing that causes me concern and shows this isn't just a military matter is the political response. The administration didn't say anything until local media saw it and apparently Blinken thought it was serious enough to postpone his trip. Maybe that's a pretense, but we don't know. Either way though it implies this isn't just a matter of military judgment, but also political judgement. Therefore, what should be done about it is left in the hands of elected politicians and their appointees, which in turn brings us back to citizens and voters, even indirectly. Combine that with the fact that, whatever the CCP says, it probably wasn't an accident, and it's perfectly reasonable to have a a contrary view from that of the military brass or presidential administration. You can reasonably have a contrary view but you should also have a reasonable level of self awareness about the extent of your own expertise. What is your level of expertise regarding Chinese spy satellite technology? I strongly suspect it's better than whatever a balloon has. The first few days of this story I thought just letting it go was fine, as I couldn't game out a way in my head that trying (and maybe failing) to shoot it down was worth it. I'm just not sure we are getting the whole story and I don't know what implications this has for future CCP activity in our area. It's just curious to me that a big diplomatic trip was worth canceling for this, but the balloon itself is not worth dealing with. It's precisely our ignorance that creates more room for contrasting opinions. We need more info from the administration and I'm not at all opposed to congress demanding it.
I don't really understand the dichotomy. It can both be a completely irrelevant military act AND a serious political provocation at once... Blinken cancelling his diplomatic mission is a political response to the political provocation. Not shooting it out of the sky is military non-response to the non-threat it poses.
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On February 05 2023 02:53 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2023 02:43 Introvert wrote:On February 05 2023 02:36 KwarK wrote:On February 05 2023 02:33 Introvert wrote:
If the balloon is just a pointless provocation there may be wisdom in just ignoring it, thr thing that causes me concern and shows this isn't just a military matter is the political response. The administration didn't say anything until local media saw it and apparently Blinken thought it was serious enough to postpone his trip. Maybe that's a pretense, but we don't know. Either way though it implies this isn't just a matter of military judgment, but also political judgement. Therefore, what should be done about it is left in the hands of elected politicians and their appointees, which in turn brings us back to citizens and voters, even indirectly. Combine that with the fact that, whatever the CCP says, it probably wasn't an accident, and it's perfectly reasonable to have a a contrary view from that of the military brass or presidential administration. You can reasonably have a contrary view but you should also have a reasonable level of self awareness about the extent of your own expertise. What is your level of expertise regarding Chinese spy satellite technology? I strongly suspect it's better than whatever a balloon has. The first few days of this story I thought just letting it go was fine, as I couldn't game out a way in my head that trying (and maybe failing) to shoot it down was worth it. I'm just not sure we are getting the whole story and I don't know what implications this has for future CCP activity in our area. It's just curious to me that a big diplomatic trip was worth canceling for this, but the balloon itself is not worth dealing with. It's precisely our ignorance that creates more room for contrasting opinions. We need more info from the administration and I'm not at all opposed to congress demanding it. I don't really understand the dichotomy. It can both be a completely irrelevant military act AND a serious political provocation at once... Blinken cancelling his diplomatic mission is a political response to the political provocation. Not shooting it out of the sky is military non-response to the non-threat it poses.
But why does it have to a military threat to warrant a military response? Given diffraction limits and atmospheric interference maybe there could be a reason to put a camera on board. Now I also think there's good reason to NOT put a state of the art camera on a slow moving balloon and send it over hostile territory... if it really is so provocative than I think it's reasonable to consider shooting it down. Maybe in the end it still isn't done, I just think it's a justifiable position based on what we know.
Edit: I suppose "slow moving" is relative bur you get the point. The CCP thought through this and weighed risks and rewards too. They didn't do it for no reason.mayve that reason is worth shooting it down
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EPT
